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Chapter 24 - Working Psychotherapeutically with Children

from Section 2 - Work in Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2021

By
Margot Waddell
Edited by
Rachel Gibbons  and
Jo O'Reilly
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Summary

The essential goals of the child and adolescent psychotherapist are not dissimilar to those of the adult therapist: to understand and render meaningful troubled aspects of the personality. The process brings insight to bear on the nature of the internal world and its mixed population of figures, benign and persecutory. Mental development occurs not so much through ‘ironing out’ the difficulties, but rather through ‘an increase in the capacity to bear reality and a decrease in the obstructive force of illusions’ [1, p. 51]. Bearing reality lies in being able to reintegrate aspects of the personality that have been disowned, or disavowed as too threatening to psychic equilibrium. The process of integration involves taking back projections and bearing the discomfort of being brought into relation with the less manageable aspects of the self. The method is based on the observation and interpretation of the transference and countertransference relationship, the elucidation of dreams and, in the case of children and adolescents, the underlying meaning of play and enactments of whatever kind that take place both in and outside the consulting room.

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Seminars in the Psychotherapies , pp. 312 - 322
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

References

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Further Reading

Abraham, K. A short study of the development of the libido, viewed in the light of mental disorders. In Jones, E, ed., Selected Papers on Psycho-Analysis. London: Hogarth. 1927; pp. 418–501. Reprint, Spillius, EB, ed., Melanie Klein Today: Developments in Theory and Practice. Vol. 2. Mainly Practice. London: Routledge, 1988.Google Scholar
Edgcombe, R. Anna Freud: A View of Development, Disturbance and Therapeutic Techniques. London: Routledge, 2000.Google Scholar
Geissman, C & P. A History of Child Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, 1992.Google Scholar
Harris Williams, M (ed.). Collected Papers of Martha Harris and Esther Bick. Strathtay: Clunie Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Hoxter, S. Play and communication. In Boston, M, Daws, D, eds., The Child Psychotherapist and Problems of Young People. London: Wildwood House. 1977; pp. 202–31.Google Scholar
Hurry, A. Psychoanalysis and Developmental Therapy. London: Karnac Books, 1998.Google Scholar
Isaacs, S. The nature and function of phantasy. Int J Psychoanal 1948; 29: 73–97. Reprint, Klein, M, Heinarm, P, Isaacs, S, Riviere, J, eds., Developments in Psycho-Analysis. London: Hogarth Press, 1952.Google Scholar
King, P. Steiner, R (eds.). The Freud-Klein Controversies, 1941–1945. London: Tavistock/Routledge, 1991.Google Scholar
Klein, M. Symposium on child analysis. In Love, Guilt and Reparation and Other Works, 1921–1945, op. cit. 1927Google Scholar
O’Shaughnessy, E. A 3½-year-old boy’s melancholic identification with an original object. Int J Psychoanal 1986; 67: 173–9.Google Scholar
O’Shaughnessy, E. A commerative essay on W. R. Bion’s theory of thinking. J Child Psychother 1981; 7 (2): 181–9. Reprinted as W.R. Bion’s theory of thinking and new techniques in child analysis. In EB Spillius, ed., Melanie Klein Today: Developments in Theory and Practice. Vol. 2. Mainly Practice. London: Routledge. 1988; pp. 177–90.Google Scholar
O’Shaughnessy, E. Melanie Klein Today: Developments in Theory and Practice. Vol. 2. Mainly Practice. London: Routledge, 1988.Google Scholar
Rustin, M, Rhode, M, Dubinsky, A, Dubinsky, H (eds.). Psychotic States in Children. London: Karnac Books, 1998.Google Scholar
Szur, R, Miller, S (eds.). Extending Horizons: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Children, Adolescents and their Families. London: Karnac Books, 1991.Google Scholar
Waddell, M. Inside Lives: Psychoanalysis and the Growth of the Personality. London: Karnac Books, 1998.Google Scholar
Waddell, M. On Adolescence. London: Routledge, 2018 .Google Scholar

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